Redux
by LilRedK8monster
Summary: Follow up to The Cricket Game, a mirror of the past. Established SwanQueen, presupposes to fall on the timeline of FaithinthePoor's series (check it out on LJ). This isn't PART of her series, but if you're looking for the establishment of the SQ from this story, read that, because it's amazing and my headcanon.


It wasn't until she caught the taillights of the old Mercedes as it pulled away from the curb that she realized Regina had been there. A wanted criminal who had disappeared dramatically in a cloud of purple mist, casually parked on the corner across from her son's bus stop. The image of Regina's shocked face when she learned of Archie's death warred with the memory of Regina, almost manically, insisting Henry deserved to hear her side of the story. Emma pulled Henry closer to her, trying to shake off the sinking feeling in her gut.

"How about Snow and James take you for some Ice Cream, hm?" The chipper tone she went for missed by a mile, but Henry seemed bolstered by the proposition.

They made their way to the Charmings, Henry's face just about buried into Emma's side. "You guys wanna take him for a little treat at Granny's?"

Snow looked at Emma curiously, "Before dinner? Won't that..."

"After today? We all need something special." Emma ruffled Henry's brown hair "Please?"

"Absolutely." Snow directed at Henry. Then at her daughter, "You'll be joining us?"

"No..." Emma hedged, unsure of whether or not the pair before her noticed they'd been watched. "I have to go... Check... something."

"You want me to come with you?" James, ever the hero, even seemed to puff out his chest.

"No... Just take Henry. I'll see you guys later."

XXX

The day had gone dreary and there was a misting rain coming down as the Sheriff pulled up to the stables. The Mercedes had been in front of the Mayor's Mansion, but instinctively Emma had known she would not find the Queen there.

As she pulled herself out of her yellow bug, Emma adjusted her jacket. She wasn't quite sure what she would find, or really, why it even mattered that she find the woman at all, but even so, she made her way up the grassy hill to the stable's entrance.

Of the scenarios that she was prepared for, an angry Regina, a vengeful Regina, a Regina perhaps cooking up a curse to turn her into a toad, the one that she found was not one she was ever expecting.

On the ground outside of the stall that housed Henry's horse, arms wrapped around the knees drawn to her chest sat the former mayor. Sobbing. Her first instinct was to run, but it was a question of where. To the shell of a woman before her, or in the other direction, as fast as she could, either way.

Savior that she is, and against her better judgement, probably, Emma Swan chose the former. She came to a kneel in front of this broken creature and reached with tentative hands for her shoulders. Soft though her caress was, Regina's head snapped up like she'd been slapped. Frantic, ferrel eyes looked at Emma without seeing, and the brunette scrambled to her feet, nearly knocking the other woman over in her haste.

"Regina." Emma soothed.

"Why are you here?" Regina snarled like a cornered animal. She roughly wiped at her face to rid her cheeks of tears.

"You were there today." Emma tried with all her might to maintain her sheriff's demeanor.

"I wanted to give my side of the story..."

Still wild, Emma couldn't catalogue all of the emotions flying across the Queen's face. For someone so supposedly cold and unfeeling, Emma wasn't sure she'd ever seen eyes as expressive as the woman's before her. Still...

"You killed him. What else is there to tell?"

This emotion on the older woman's face was one Emma was familiar with. Loathing. It seemed deeper this time, however, more sinister. The low growl of her voice was like nothing she'd ever heard, certainly no Disney villain ever elicited this kind of icy fear. "If I wanted someone dead, do you think the person I would have gone after would be Jiminy Cricket? If I was going to lose my son for one act, would I have gone after the one person who has..." She broke off, but the steel in her eyes made Emma shiver. "There is a _charming_ list of residents I would go after before that man."

Emma didn't take the bait, instead she stepped closer to the dangerous woman before her "Damnit Regina I SAW you do it! I saw you walk into his office, take him by the throat and kill him! Ruby saw you go in! Tell me, how am I supposed to believe you?"

"Believe whatever you want, Miss Swan," Regina spit out her name like a bad taste in her mouth, "I didn't kill him."

"Then how, Regina?" Emma was quickly spiraling out of control herself. "How can it be? Tell me. You wanna tell your story, tell me. You want me to believe someone pretended to be you?! Fooled people into thinking..." She recoiled like she'd been punched in the chest and trailed off. "No. No no no."

"What?" Confused by the change Regina softened her gaze at the woman who had turned away from her to pace. "Emma... What?"

"Your mother." Emma all but chokes out when she finally came to a stop. "She pretended to be Lancelot. He was dead but she... Snow figured it out in front of the wardrobe. It was him, but he was her."

"Emma..." Regina hesitated.

"No. She can't be here right? I'm almost more comfortable with you murdering Archie than that crazy bitch being here in this town. Tell me she's not here Regina. Tell me!" Same words begged for a totally different reason, Emma's fear was palpable in the air around them.

"Emma. I didn't kill him." Fight had totally left her body, dread filled her senses instead. "You left her in Fairy Tale Land. She's powerful though, Emma..."

Emma closed some of the distance between them. They were close, but not touching. "That much I do know. She tried to take my heart..."

Regina reached out involuntarily, gripping Emma's forearms. "No." She closed her eyes against the flashback that rocked her. Her mother holding the heart of a different lover.

Emma's breath caught as Regina's hand drifted to cover the area over said organ. "She couldn't. She wanted Snow's heart, for you. But I stepped in front of her..."

"So foolish." Regina murmured.

"She had it in her hands, PS that fucking hurts, but she couldn't take it. She told me something about love being weakness and then I made her fly across the ground with my magic, or whatever." Emma caught the hand on her chest and brought it to her lips. "Regina. Did you kill him?"

Regina met her eyes, sad and worried. Honest. "No." Emma sighed, her shoulders relaxed, and she pulled their bodies together. "But if the answer is that my mother is here... Emma..."

Emma brought their foreheads together. "We'll deal with it. God, Regina. I'm so sorry..."

Regina shook her head, but didn't break contact. "I know how it must have looked."

"I know you though. They were so sure... Henry didn't believe it. Not really. He asked me to keep looking." The hand that was not still holding Regina's against her heart lightly caressed the back of her Regina's neck. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you. After... I should have. I know you." She pressed her lips to Regina's hairline, just above her temple. "I'm sorry." She whispered again.

Regina relaxed into the embrace but said nothing, choosing instead to relish the feeling of Emma's warm body against hers.

"So what do we do" Emma says softly, as she rocked back to look at Regina.

Regina closed her eyes and bowed her head. "Not this. That's for sure."

"What does that mean?" Emma's voice came out more forcefully than she intended and she shifted her hands to the Queen's hips.

"'Love is weakness.' That's what she said to you. She'll know. We can't..." Regina broke away from the embrace and moved to lean on the sill of another stall. "She can't know about this. She can't know about Henry. She will... She *has* killed what I love. She'll do it again if she finds out about you."

"Love. Kill what you love...?" Emma blinked at her. "Regina..."

"Oh don't make it a *thing* Miss Swan, it's an expression." Regina tried to channel her most withering, queenly glare and threw it over her shoulder at the princess, but her heart wasn't in it. "I mean it, Emma, if she is here..."

Emma stepped in behind the mayor, invading her personal space. "Regina. She can't take my heart. I don't... I know I don't know the full story, but I have read the book... I know, ish, what she did to you, to him. She can't do that to me. Whatever this" she gestured between them, though Regina's back was still turned, "is... she's not going to be the one that screws it up. We will do that just fine on our own." Emma was relieved when she got a soft chuckle out of the brunette. Running her hand up Regina's back to rub her shoulder, she braced herself for what she knows is not going to go over well. "She knows about Henry."

Regina stiffened on cue, turning on Emma with harsh eyes, "What?"

Emma held her hands up "I didn't know she was a crazy bitch! I didn't even know who she was! She was there when we were thrown into a pit! Mary Margaret was arguing with her when she woke up and I... it slipped! She said she was a friend! I didn't know"

"And now she's here!" Regina paced the floor one hand on her hip the other in her hair. "She knows..." She stopped short for a second. "Why was Snow arguing with her?"

Emma scuffed the dirt in front of her, hands defensively shoved in her back pockets. "She said however bad I thought you were, that Cora was worse. And that I shouldn't talk to her." She shrugged "Which I guess makes sense since Cora was all "Imma rip your heart out, Snow. Housewarming gift for my daughter!" I mean how do they even... I need to read Henry's book again. There is so much back story here..."

Regina cut her off with a dark laugh. "You have no idea." She stopped pacing and turned to Emma, all business. "We need to get you and Henry somewhere safe. Snow's apartment. I can put an enchantment, a protection spell on the apartment, but you need to keep them inside. Then I need to find my mother."

Emma cocked a hip and an eyebrow. "I'm helping, right? I'm not going to let you go after that crazy..."

"Yes. My mother is a crazy bitch, message received. No. You're not helping. You need to stay with Henry. You need to make him safe."

"Regina be reasonable for like, one second of your life here. I have magic. The hat when I touched you, the 'Cora couldn't take my heart' bit... Hell even the dream catcher with Pongo, sure it said my girlfriend was a killer, but I stole a memory from a DOG. I can help you." Emma forced Regina to meet her eyes. "You put the protection spell on Snow's place. I'm with you. That's how this is gonna work. That's how we're going to win."

Regina sighed. "Don't you get it? She will use what I love to break me. She is not here because she missed me. Or she's proud of me. She's here because I banished her to Wonderland. She is here to make me who she thought I should be. She will break me until she's satisfied and she will use all that I love to do that. Killing Archie? Framing me? Don't you see Emma? She can't know you and I..." She lost steam as Emma wrapped her arms around her waist. She placed her hands on Emma's shoulders, twirling a blonde curl between her fingers. "Girlfriend?"

Emma chuckled despite the circumstance. "Well I mean we've got some things to work out. Your crazy mother, you tried to kill me, I thought you were a murderer, you're the Evil Queen... There have been worse starts to relationships." She smiled softly at the woman in her eyes. "We have a lot to talk about. But... Let's start with this. This we do together."

"Emma, if you stand with me she will destroy us both. Henry needs at least one of us." Regina whispered.

"Hey now. That sounds a lot like you're planning to fall on your sword." She brings her hands up to cup Regina's face. "We are doing this together. That's not a discussion. If nothing else, I know that you are more powerful in this place when I'm touching you. And Cora has already tried to kill me and failed. So. We do this. Together."

"This savior thing has gone to your head." Regina teased quietly, pressing her face into Emma's warm palm. "She's so strong."

"We're stronger." Emma counters, full of bravado she's not sure she actually possessed. She then finally, definitively, closed the distance between them for the first time since her return from Fairy Tale Land. Regina only fights her for a brief moment before giving in and melding their bodies together.

"Oh my..."

The pair pulls apart at the outburst, and Regina's stomach plummeted to the floor.

There in the entry way of the stables stood one very shocked Snow White

"Snow" Regina started, her voice higher than Emma had ever heard.

"Emma. Dinner... We were... Your car is here." Her gaze tightened. "What are you doing with her?" Snow's face held the same youthful betrayal Regina had seen two lifetimes ago.

"Snow. We can explain." Emma tried to placate her mother but Snow silenced her with a look. She backed out of the stables and took off down the hill.

"No..." Regina looked at Emma, voice barely audible in her panic. "No. No no no." Before Emma could react, Regina tore out of the stable after her mother. "SNOW!"

"Shit." Emma collapsed backwards into the wall of the stable. She tilted her head back, closed her eyes and hoped that someday, something would be easy.

XXX

"Snow! Snow, Please!" Regina moved as quickly as her legs would carry her after the fleeing woman. Halfway to the parking lot, Snow lost her footing and went down to her hands and knees in the mud. Instinct overrode decades of vengeful wrath, and Regina dropped next to the younger woman. "Snow! Are you ok?"

It was too much. Regina reached for Snow, lifted her out of the mud, but Snow couldn't take it. "No. No!" Snow sobbed as she knocked away the hands gripping her arms. Anger fought pain for purchase on Snow's milky features as she pulled herself back to standing. "That is my *daughter*..."

"Snow, please... Listen to me. It's not what you think." Regina stood with her and reached to brush some mud off of Snow White's cheek, a tender gesture from another time.

Snow shoved Regina hard, putting distance between them once more. "That is bullshit Regina. You were kissing her! You're still trying to destroy me, by trying to get Emma on your side!"

The momentary flash of tenderness she'd felt for this woman before her gone, Regina slid back into the role of the Evil Queen. Her voice dropped and there was gravel in her words, "Not everything is about you, my precious Snow White."

A testament as to to how far the real Snow White is from her Storybrooke counterpart, the meek Mary Margaret that Snow doesn't so much as flinch. Instead, she bit back, "Oh I'm sorry. You cursed our entire LAND, brought us all to this place, separated me my true love, all because you thought that I was prettier than you. Forgive me if I am skeptical that your intentions with my daughter are less than pure."

Emma had emerged from the stables and was a few yards away when she heard her mother challenging her lover. She stopped dead in her tracks. She'd seen Snow as her bad ass self in Fairy Tale Land, but this stand off was different somehow. She knew she definitely didn't want to be involved if she didn't have to, but she really didn't want to go far, because she couldn't say with certainty there wouldn't be bloodshed.

Regina, for her part, was as still as a statue, the only muscles that moved were the narrowing of her eyes. "Because you are prettier than I am? You foolish child." She all but growled.

Snow faltered only a little. "When James finds out about this..."

"NO!" Regina was in Snow's face before she could finish her thought. "You will not tell a soul. You will NOT do this to me again. There is nothing for you to gain this time, you selfish little wretch and I will not let you get her killed, too."

Snow backed up a step, not certain she was following this turn. "Regina..."

Suddenly, she was 18 years old again, pleading her case to a child who couldn't possible comprehend. "You will keep this secret, Snow. You will keep it because we both lose if you don't."

"Regina what..." Snow's eyes searched Regina's face for a trace of where this was coming from. "Daniel. He ran away because I told your mother..."

Closing her eyes, Regina backed off. Higher up the hill Emma watched the pair with wide eyes, straining to listen, half hidden behind a tree. "He didn't run away." Regina's voice was flat.

"But you said..." Snow anxiously wrung her hands.

"I am a liar. I say lots of things, dear. Didn't we established that it's who I am? Who I have always been? Who I'll always be? When you Charmings came pounding on my door to arrest me." Regina snapped.

"You weren't." Snow found the strength to stand up to Regina once again. "You weren't always like this. I knew you. I loved you. I wanted you to be my mother."

"And Daniel died because of it!" The fresh scabs of the wounds left by Daniel's recent reappearance tear away as Regina's emotions threaten to overtake her.

"But... No." The enormous weight of that implication bent Snow at the waist.

"My mother... Tore out his heart in front of me. Turned it to *dust* because you couldn't keep a secret. I was forced to marry your father, to live in the shadow of your mother and my mother and be nothing more than dressed up servant to attend to your every whim and desire. I lost my love, my life, my freedom because you couldn't keep your mouth shut. You being "prettier" than me... Dear, you are naive." For most of her adult life, Regina had plotted, used every tool at her disposal, with the singular focus of devastating the beautiful girl before her. She was never so successful as in that moment, where the lies Snow's childhood were built on crumbled at her feet. "I asked you not to tell her. I told you what she would do. And you did it anyway."

"We were to be a family... You told me you and my father..." Regina could see the confused child she was all those years ago through the tears in Snow's eyes.

However, this was no longer a child she was dealing with. This was a woman who had ruled in her own right. Regina cut to the bone, but not with the satisfaction she might have thought she'd find. "I had no other choice. My one chance to get away, my one shot at happiness, was taken from me. By you. And I will be damned if I will let you do it again." The air around them crackled with her words.

Snow looked at her for a long moment. She worked her jaw trying to come to terms with what she'd just learned. It warred with everything else she knew about the woman before her and she couldn't quite tamp down on her anger. "That doesn't mean you get to use my daughter as a pawn."

Regina laughed, deep and ominous. "She came to me. I didn't ask her to come here."

"She came to you because you are a wanted criminal and she is the Sheriff." The conviction behind her words wasn't what she had hoped it would be.

"I didn't kill Archie." Her words were menacing.

"We *saw* you Regina." Snow had resorted to yelling as her heart warred with her head.

"You saw what she wanted you to see. She is here." Regina's voice had an heir of calm about it that made Snow shiver.

"No. No she's not here. You... It had to be you." Snow's inability to process made Regina roll her eyes. How had this woman ever lead a kingdom?

"I didn't kill him." Regina choked a bit, holding herself back from unleashing the veiled threat she had previously leveled at Emma. "Why would I kill him?"

"He told your secret, same as I did." Snow held her chin high, defiant.

"And it resulted in an invitation to a dinner party, not the tearing out of my love's heart. You can see how the situation is different." Regina tried to keep her temper in check.

"But Ruby saw you threaten him." Snow realized she was grasping at straws.

"No. Ruby saw me confront him for telling Emma about my sessions. He's the first person I trusted with a secret since I told a little girl about True Love." Regina narrowed her eyes and Snow had the good sense to look sheepish. "I was understandably angry. I told him he was lucky I've changed. And I have. My son loves Archie. Why would I kill him?"

Snow searched Regina's face. She knew that facade well, but she still looked for a sign. "So you think, She's back?"

"Emma figured it out." Regina said, the hint of a smile played on her lips.

"She is a can shape shift. We saw it." Snow sighed. "How did she get here? What does she want?"

"I don't know how she got here. But I'm pretty certain that what she wants is me. Her ideas of what is best for me have never lined up with mine. Framing me for Archie's murder seems to be her first play. I can't imagine that she is hoping for a happy reunion." Regina shook her head. She was utterly exhausted and this war hadn't even begun.

Snow picked at some drying mud on her arm. "So what is your plan?"

Regina chuckled, lighter this time, almost inappropriately so for a conversation of this magnitude. "Well first and foremost, my dearest Snow, you will tell precisely no one about what you saw."

Shame colored Snow's ears with a blush of red. "Regina, my daughter..."

"She's a big girl. She's as infuriatingly nobel as her father. She won't back down from this. I tried." Regina takes a deep breath. "Cora will come after them. Henry, and Emma if she finds out that we are anything more than Henry's mother. You can't tell anyone. She could BE anyone. No one can hear about this Snow. I mean it."

"I'm not exactly bursting at the seams to share with the town that my daughter, the Savior, is shacking up with the Evil Queen." Snow shook her head. Protectively she asked "How did this even happen, Regina?"

"After Henry, in the mine..." Regina trailed off. She wasn't exactly comfortable sharing the details of her romantic exploits in general, let alone to Snow.

"Regina that's almost a year ago!" Shocked didn't seem a strong enough emotion to cover the look on Snow's face as she startled.

"We've been careful." Regina couldn't hide the smirk that appeared. "It's been... interesting."

Realization dawned. "Wait, you've tried to *kill* her since then. Regina..."

"I didn't try to kill her per say. It was your apple. *You* didn't die. I had no reason to believe it would kill her." Regina's nonchalance was disturbing.

"That's not really comforting." Snow threw her hands in the air before settling them on her hips. "Why should I trust you? What makes this time different? Why should I believe that you care about my daughter? My whole childhood you pretended to care about me. How do I know you're not going to use her?"

The sting of Snow's words came as a surprise to Regina, but she didn't let it show. "Henry. I would never hurt Henry. If I hurt Emma, I lose him. And her. If you don't trust me. We lose them both." She couldn't meet Snow's eye, her own honesty too much for the moment.

"You love her." An accusation. A fact.

"I don't want to see her hurt by Cora." Regina avoided the question. She grabbed the younger woman's hands, desperate to be understood. "I don't know how to repent for the things that I have done. I am trying to be better. For Henry. For Emma... You still think I should be punished and I understand that. But please. Cora is here now. She will try to take away what I love. And that affects us both, Snow. Henry, Emma..." She closed her eye, fighting tears she was ashamed to feel building. Another time, laid at Snow White's mercy, she refused to show weakness. Now, it was all she had. "She wanted to bring me your heart. I can't let that happen."

"Regina..." Snow was uncomfortable, but she didn't pull away.

"Let me protect you. Then, you can do what you see fit." Plaintive eyes begged. Regina stood before her a woman laid bare.

Snow stared for a long moment. This is what she had wanted. When she offered Regina the parlay, when she gave Regina the chance to leave before ultimately exiling her, this is who she wanted to see. This is who she knew Regina could be. That her daughter had a hand in changing her was enough to give her shivers, but it didn't matter when she saw the pleading eyes before her.

"I'm trying, Snow. I am trying so hard to be better." Regina supplied, reading the questions plaguing Snow's eyes.

Snow pulled Regina by their still joined hands into a hug. Regina briefly hesitated before bringing her hands to embrace the young girl who could have been her daughter. It wasn't a long embrace, but it was something, and Snow smiled softly as they pulled apart.

Regina collected herself, smoothing her hands down the front of her dress, raising up to her full height. She cleared her throat, shifting only slightly under the younger woman's gaze as she called out. "You can come out now Emma. We didn't kill one another."

Sheepishly Emma made her way down to the pair. ""That's um, not exactly how I thought this was going to turn out." When she got close enough, she ran her hand down Regina's arm, searching her eyes, and tangled their fingers together for just a beat before dropping her hand. She almost knew how hard this day had been for her lover, but she suspected she'd never fully comprehend. A nod from the brunette placated her for now.

Snow watched with a cautious smile. "Well, we're growing." This tentative understanding she'd reached with Regina was hardly enough to cover all past transgressions, but it was a start. And Snow White is nothing if not forgiving. "What can I do to help?"


End file.
